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Beyond: It’s Not Another Heavy Rain

At first glance, Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain seem to have more in common than not. Both games focus on intricate narratives and deep character development, highlighted by cutting-edge performance capture and dazzling digital sets.

But on closer examination, Beyond: Two Souls, which launches exclusively for PS3 on October 8th, is a wholly unique creation with no obvious analogue. For one, its sweeping story focuses on one character instead of four. Beyond: Two Souls spans an entire lifetime as it follows the trials of protagonist Jodie Holmes (Ellen Page) and her constant companion, Aiden — an invisible entity with incredible powers. For another, it features a radically different, more direct play style compared to Heavy Rain.

In our new interview, Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere discusses the differences between the team’s two latest projects, and the daunting scope of the story. Listen in for his insight on the game design process, and how Quantic Dream infused player-driven choices into a story-driven experience.

In Beyond: Two Souls, players jump between different periods of Jodie’s life, piecing together the story while controlling both her and Aiden’s actions. But Jodie’s life hasn’t been easy. Exposed to psychological experiments at a young age, and hurled through adulthood by desperation and heartache, this woman has seen more danger than most. Though she hasn’t seen it alone. Aiden has been connected to her since birth, and will share in her 15-year journey through Beyond: Two Souls.

Beyond: Two Souls promises to push the limits of interactive storytelling as Jodie hunts for answers. Help her unravel the mystery surrounding her connection with Aiden, and what lies beyond life itself.

60 Comments

Either way, whether it’s like Heavy Rain or not I’ve moved on to be digital download only, and it seems to me that Sony has been trying to encourage players to move into that space so it seems odd to me that neither this game nor god of war ascension, both first party titles, are not supporting digital downloads as the future of the medium.

Its amazing what Shenmue and Yu Suzuki has done for gaming. This is a direct result of it and its a shame that so many of today’s gamers that are much younger–or those that never understood or wanted anything SEGA related– don’t recognize what evolved gaming into what it is today. Playing Grand Theft Auto, or Beyond: Two Souls, or Saints Row, InFamous whatever, is all from SEGA’s innovation and their risk made when they shelled out $70 million to produce Shenmue on the Dreamcast. Why SEGA chose to erase Shenmue from history because it was costly at its time and then opt to do Yakuza instead leaving Shenmue’s story unfinished is beyond me.

So there ya go gamers, today’s gaming comes from the original idea by Yu Suzuki at SEGA creating Shenmue. The first game to feature a real open world and interactivity with people, environments, and objects even using quicktime events to change up the gameplay of that day to try and give it a more realistic experience reacting in real time to attacks to defend yourself by timing out your defense by button presses. This is style and class indeed. Yu Suzuki was a mastermind and truly ahead of his time. Its unfortunate his story still remain’s untold and a shame that so many have forgotten that genius and that so many have no idea, today, where their gaming experiences come from.

Wondering why I had to verify my age to see the trailer. There wasn’t anything in there to warrant that imo. Most of the “footage” shows some dude trying to sell a Heavy Rain style game as if its something else.

Why do you people feel the need to piss and moan and spit on a game you haven’t even played yet? Ok, so you don’t like it, it’s not your thing. So keep your mouth shut and move on. Not everyone shares your elitist views…

I paid off my copy yesterday. And I can’t wait to play it. Then maybe I’ll pick LoU back up and finish that.

Typical type, the world revolves around me and all people who disagree should be silent. Sounds like modern politics/media. I will not keep my mouth shut. How ’bout shut yours? Does that sound fair? Rubbish.

Prepaying for a game you’ve never played sounds like a leap of faith to me. Rolling the dice there I’d say, good luck with that.